Richard
F. Taflinger, PhD

This is the text to Taking ADvantage, a book on the physical and cultural
evolution of human beings, how that evolution has affected human subconscious
processing of stimuli, and how advertising takes advantage (thus the title) of
that processing by creating stimuli.

Introduction

That may seem a strange way to open a book on
advertising, but it's true. Deep down inside people bay at the moon.

When I first started in advertising, I
thought it was just a matter of talking people into believing me when I extolled
a product's virtues. As it turned out, I was right.

However, the more I worked on advertising,
the more I realized that there was more to it than simply talking to people. It
was necessary to examine what motivated people; what, deep down inside, people
wanted from a product. This led me to start studying motivation,
in particular the psychological and cultural aspects that made up what led
people to do what they did.

This study led me to look where I had never
gone before: biology, psychology, psychophysiology, anatomy, communication
theory, cultural anthropology, psychoanalysis (no, not because I needed it
personally (yes, you did!)(no, I didn't!)).

Where my studies have led me is to a series
of ten psychological appeals that advertising uses to motivate people to buy
products. Those appeals are:

Self-preservation

Sex

Acquisition
of property

Self-esteem

Personal
enjoyment

Constructiveness

Destructiveness

Curiosity

Imitation

Altruism

WHAT IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPEAL?

A psychological appeal is a visual or aural
influence on your subconscious mind and emotions. It does this by implying that
doing what is suggested (in the case of advertising, buying the product or
service) will satisfy a subconscious desire. It is not subliminal, which are
elements in a visual or aural presentation that you don't consciously perceive
but influence your behavior. If a psychological appeal couldn't be perceived,
it would have no effect at all. In fact, it is blatantly obvious the moment you
know such appeals exist. It doesn't aim at your intellect. In fact, your
intellect can often get in the way of the effect of an appeal.

Actually, a psychological appeal doesn't have
to make sense, and often shouldn't to be effective. Simply remember a nightmare
you once had. Remember how sensible it all seemed while you were dreaming, and
how little sense it made when awake. Nonetheless, you woke up in a cold sweat,
breathing hard and shaking. Why? Because your dreaming mind
saw everything in the nightmare as real, and your body, which your mind
controls, reacted accordingly.

As you look at this book, you may notice that
I include a large biological basis for the foundation and use of many of the
appeals. For many people, this may cause a conflict. There is a debate going on
today between nature and nurture, whether biology or environment is the
controlling factor in human behavior. It may easily appear that I support the
nature side of the debate.

Such is not the case. I do not believe that
nature (biology) controls human behavior. However, I do believe that biology is
a powerful influence.

Please note the difference: nature does not
control, but does influence. Humans, like all other biological organisms on
earth, cannot help being influenced by the fact that they are biological, that
there are genetic predispositions to regard certain stimuli in a certain way.
That this could be doubted I find hard to believe.

Nonetheless, humans have an additional factor
that influences them far more than any other organism on earth (as far as we
humans know). We have the most complex social structure on earth, one that
permeates and influences every aspect of our lives. Who we
are, what we do, and how we do it is constantly being restrained by and
realized through our societies and cultures.

For example, how do you feel about a snack of
nice, fresh maggots?

#

You probably went, "Yuck!!!", or
some other expression of dislike. However, your society determines how you
actually feel about eating maggots. For some societies, particularly in the
tropics, they're a wonderful treat. How about cannibalism? In some societies,
it is the greatest honor you can do the entree: you eat grandpa because he
then, quite literally, becomes a part of your living body, and when you die you
become a part of the living body of your descendants, taking a part of grandpa
with you, etc., etc., etc., and thus no one ever actually dies--they live
forever in the bodies of their descendants. When you think about it, that's not
a bad afterlife, since it isn't an afterlife at all--it's a part of a current
life.

Then why don't you think of things that way?
Because your society says you don't eat maggots or frowns on cannibalism, and
has taught you that they are wrong.

However, when biological forces, such as starvation,
come into play, the social lessons you have learned lose their power. Just
remember the Donner Party. They were a group of 19th Century settlers who got
snow-bound in the Sierra Nevadamountains. After a time, the only source of food, and thus of
survival, came from the people who were still alive eating the people who had
died. Deep down inside, staying alive (a biological imperative) took precedence
over social proscriptions against cannibalism. Thus, those who died kept those
who still lived alive.

The same applies to the other appeals.
Although there are proscriptions against lust, greed, fun, etc. by whichever
society you live in, they nonetheless have an effect on you: everyone wants to
stay alive, to reproduce, to have a larger piece of the pie, to have fun.
Although humans need society to live, we've had society for only a few thousand
years; we've had biological urges for millions of years, and it's these urges
that advertising can take advantage of when using psychological appeals.

You must always bear in mind that the use of
these appeals cannot force anyone to do anything. That they exist is true; that
they are incontrovertible, uncontrollable and inescapable is not. The use of
any one or combination of them in an ad does not automatically result in people
buying the product. That they can force anyone to buy anything is giving
advertising a power that it neither has nor should have. They can, at the most,
make a product look more attractive, and, at the least, attract the attention
of someone in the target audience. Nonetheless, they exist, and the advertising
person should know about them, as should the audience that sees them.

In the following chapters, I will discuss the
appeals and their biological and social bases. The organization reflects the
degree to which biology or society influence the
appeals. The first section is to provide some principles of advertising and
psychology. For those people not in advertising it will give you some
background. For those people in advertising, it will serve merely as a
reminder. I will also provide some background on human psychology, how a human
responds to and thinks about the world around rher.

Please realize that you should consider
neither of these chapters an exhaustive treatment of either advertising or
psychology. They are just background that will help you understand what is in
the rest of the book. If you already have a good understanding of advertising
and psychology, feel free to skip this section. You may, however, wish to skim
it.

The second section covers the appeals of
self-preservation, sex, and greed. Biology is the strongest influence on these
three appeals. They are instinctive reactions to being alive and staying that
way. Society mitigates rather than creates them. Chapter Three is the
biological basis, Chapter Four is the social basis,
and Chapters Five, Six and Seven look at how advertising can take advantage of
self-preservation, sex and greed.

The third section covers the remaining
appeals: self-esteem, personal enjoyment, constructiveness, destructiveness,
curiosity, imitation and altruism. For these seven appeals, human society and culture
have the greatest influence on their effectiveness. However, each also has a
biological basis. Chapter Eight looks at the biology of these appeals. Chapter
Nine covers social influences. Chapters 10 - 16 discuss how advertising uses
these appeals.

DisclaimersThe information provided on this and other pages by me,
Richard F. Taflinger (richt@turbonet.com), is under my own
personal responsibility and not that of WashingtonStateUniversity
or the EdwardR.
Murrow College of Communication. Similarly, any opinions expressed are my own
and are in no way to be taken as those of WSU or ERMSC.

In addition,
I, Richard F. Taflinger, accept no responsibility for
WSU or ERMCC material or policies. Statements issued on behalf of WashingtonStateUniversity
are in no way to be taken as reflecting my own opinions or those of any other
individual. Nor do I take responsibility for the contents of any Web Pages
listed here other than my own.